Jesus and Nazareth

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE: Biblical story of Jesus possibly explained by excavations in his hometown of Nazareth (Owen Jarus, Live Science).

Nazareth's opposition to Roman cultural practices and objects would have stood in stark contrast to its neighbor, a city called Sepphoris, which embraced Roman culture, including imported objects. "Cultural separation may have created what was, in effect, an invisible barrier between Nazareth and Sepphoris," wrote study author Ken Dark, director of the Nazareth Archaeological Project, in his recently published book "Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and Its Hinterland" (Routledge, 2020).

The book is not about Jesus and Nazareth, it's about the archaeology of Nazareth. But possible (somewhat speculative) connections with Jesus are the hook for this article. And it has some interesting information about Nazareth in general.

I don't see a lot on the archaeology of Nazareth in the PaleoJudaica archives, but here is one post. And, of course, there's the Nazareth inscription, which quite possibly is not from Nazareth. By contrast, the archaeology of Sepphoris ( Tzipori/Tzippori/Zippori) is well represented. Start here and follow the links.

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Overtoom, Reign of Arrows

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Reign of Arrows. Notice of a New Book: Overtoom, Nikolaus Leo. 2020. Reign of Arrows: The Rise of the Parthian Empire in the Hellenistic Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Follow the link for description and ordering information.

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Wuppertal LXX conference postponed

WILLIAM ROSS: UPDATE: POSTPONEMENT OF 8TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR SEPTUAGINT STUDIES (WUPPERTAL 2020). I noted his announcement of the conference in January here. It has tentatively been rescheduled for 2021.

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AAR/SBL program book archive

THE AWOL BLOG: Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion Program Books 1938-2019.

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Cook on resurrection in the Mediterranean world

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: Resurrection in the Mediterranean World (John Granger Cook).

The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, following his crucifixion at the hands of the prefect of Judaea, Pontius Pilate, gradually made its way through the ancient Mediterranean world. But it fell on fertile ground. One of the primary contentions in my recent book on the topic (Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis) is that the Christians’ proclamation of a crucified Lord found fertile ground among Mediterranean people who had long been familiar with some form of the concept of the resurrection of a body.

[...]

For more on Professor Cook's recent book, see here. And for more on his other work, see here, here, and here.

For a couple of books by Jan A. Sigvartsen on related matters, see here.

And for a related essay by Devorah Dimant, along with some of my own — I think original — thoughts on the early history of the idea of resurrection, see my post Resurrection in the Book of Ezekiel (and in Ugaritic) from a couple of years ago.

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Shankbone and egg

FOR PASSOVER: Shankbone and Egg: How They Became Symbols on the Seder Plate (Dr.Joshua Kulp, TheTorah.com).

The Talmud requires having two unspecified cooked dishes to be eaten as part of the Passover meal. How did this requirement develop into the custom of placing two particular symbolic foods, the shankbone and the egg, on the seder plate?

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The first trumpet

READING ACTS: The First Trumpet: Fire Mixed with Blood – Revelation 8:7. Phil Long continues his blog series on the seven angels of the Book of Revelation and their trumpets. This post is on the trumpet of the first angel.

Background here and links.

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Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News going into liquidation

THE BBC: The Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News to go into liquidation. I am sad to hear this. PaleoJudaica has linked to both, especially The Jewish Chronicle, from time to time. I wish everyone involved all the best.

In addition to the pandemic's toll on health and lives, it is causing immense harm to the economy. Let's hope for better news soon.

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An ancient echo of a "virtual" seder?

FOR PASSOVER: This year’s ‘virtual’ seders have an ancient echo, says Haggadah historian. Through prosperity and darkness — and now again in modernity — the retelling of the Exodus story has evolved alongside the Jewish people. Prof. Vanessa Ochs traces the journey (RICH TENORIO, Times of Israel).

Just in time for one of the most unusual Passover seder nights in recent memory, acclaimed scholar Vanessa Ochs has come out with a new book on the history of the haggadah.

“The Passover Haggadah: A Biography” is Ochs’s contribution to the Princeton University Press Lives of Great Religious Books series, which includes explorations of the Book of Genesis and the letters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yet the haggadah brings some unique challenges.

[...]

Regarding that ancient echo:

Ochs writes that the first haggadot were oral instructions mentioned in the Mishnah and its supplement, the Tosefta. In the Tosefta, she finds “an ad hoc Passover home ceremony taking place between 70 and 200 CE and beyond.” Citing Prof. Judith Hauptman, Ochs writes that compared with the Mishnah, the Tosefta’s haggadah “was briefer and less elaborate,” and it “may even have come first.”

Ironically for those planning virtual seders today, the original seders had their own virtual quality for Jews who could not worship at the Second Temple following its destruction in 70 CE.

“Certainly, the seder in the Mishnah grafts ancient practices of the Passover pilgrimage holiday in Jerusalem involving the sacrifice of lambs at the ancient temple,” Ochs said. “In its place, it became itself the first virtual Passover.”

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DeMille's, "Ten Commandments" (both of them)

PASSOVER RELATED: How DeMille made his ‘Ten Commandments’ Jewish again. (PJ Grisar, The Forward). I had forgotten that DeMille had done an earlier Ten Commandments movie in the 1920s, although PaleoJudaica's archive tells me that I once knew. From the description here, the first film does sound cloyingly moralizing.

For past posts on both movies, alas with some rotted links, see here and links (cf. here).

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Wolters, Proverbs (LXX commentary)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Proverbs

A Commentary based on Paroimiai in Codex Vaticanus

Series: Septuagint Commentary Series

Author: Al Wolters

In the Proverbs volume in the Septuagint Commentary Series Al Wolters gives a meticulous philological commentary on the text of Proverbs as found in the important fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, together with a careful transcription of the Vaticanus Greek text and a fresh English translation thereof. The focus of the commentary is on the semantic and grammatical aspects of the Greek, relying primarily on general Greek usage rather than on the underlying Hebrew, and drawing on a broad array of lexicographical and grammatical resources, as well as a detailed examination of twelve previous translations of LXX Proverbs. In the process, many new interpretations of the often difficult Greek are proposed.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €121.00 / $146.00

E-Book
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42559-0
Publication Date: 17 Mar 2020

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42558-3
Publication Date: 19 Mar 2020

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Qasr al-Yahud is de-mined

PILGRIMAGE MINEFIELD CLEARED: Last landmine cleared from biblical Jordan Valley site. Holy site to be restored after 53 years as landmines finally cleared (Nicky Harley, The National). I have been following this story about Qasr Al-Yahud, which is a possible site for the baptism of Jesus, since the de-mining project was announced in 2016. This article reports the good news that the site is now fully de-mined.

The Halo Trust told The National restoration work can finally begin on the buildings to enable them to be reopened to pilgrims and visitors in the near future.

Apparently the charity blew up 500 mines in a "daisy chain explosion." I hope there's video of that.

Alas, the site will still be short of pilgrims and visitors for some time, but the Halo Trust is clearly working to make sure that it is ready when they come back.

UPDATE: Excuse me for forgetting the background link. It's here and links.

UPDATE: For the video of the detonation, see here.

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Passover 2020

HAPPY PASSOVER (PESACH) TO ALL THOSE CELEBRATING! The festival begins this evening at sundown. Stay safe and be well!

Last year's Passover post is here and it has many Passover links. Relevant biblical texts are collected here. Passover-related posts for 2020's pandemic Passover are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Are the SWBTS DSS fragments fakes?

MORE PROBLEMS WITH POST-2002 DEAD SEA SCROLL-LIKE FRAGMENTS: Southwestern Seminary’s Dead Sea Scrolls ‘likely fraudulent’ (Baptist Press).

FORT WORTH (BP)—Pieces of papyrus sold as rare fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary a decade ago are “likely fraudulent” and the seminary might seek financial restitution, the school announced in a statement April 6.

[...]

Background on the question of the post-2002 Dead SeaScroll-like fragments is here and many links. Another recent post on SWBST is here.

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The angel of the censer

READING ACTS: Who is the Angel with the Incense from the Altar of God? – Revelation 8:3-5. Phil Long continues his series on the seven angels of the Book of Revelation. This post is on the first angel.

Background here.

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Solace from ancient apocalyptic texts?

WHATEVER WORKS FOR YOU: Why religious apocalyptic texts can offer us solace during the coronavirus crisis (Siobhan Hegarty, ABC News [Australia]). By the way, 4 Ezra was written around 100 C.E., not the later date given in this article.

Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

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Review of Krag & Raja (eds.), Women, children and the family in Palmyra

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Women, children and the family in Palmyra.

Signe Krag, Rubina Raja, Women, children and the family in Palmyra. Palmyrene studies, 3. Copenhagen: The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2019. 228 p.. ISBN 9788773044193 DKK 250 (pb).

Review by
Leonardo Gregoratti, Durham University. DerGrego@gmail.com

Cross-file under Palmyra Watch. For more on the Palmyra Portrait Project, see here and here. Past posts on the Empress Zenobia are here and links.

Many other posts on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic reversals of fortune, which more recently were trending for the better, are here and links.

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The beauty of the beloved

DR. ELAINE T. JAMES: The Poetry of Beauty: What Does it Mean to See the Beloved? (TheTorah.com).

Three descriptive poems in the Song of Songs wrestle with the experience of being in the beloved’s presence. In each case, the woman’s body is described using layered landscape imagery and complex, overlapping angles of vision. These poems ask us to consider what it means to see.

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The seven angels of Revelation

READING ACTS: Who Are the Seven Angels in Revelation 8:2? Looks like Phil Long's series in the Book of Revelation is continuing.

Background here and here.

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SWBTS discontinues its archaeology program

ANOTHER CANCELLATION: Southwestern Ends Largest Evangelical Archaeology Program. Coronavirus interrupts excavation projects across Israel (Gordon Govier, Christianity Today).

The nation’s leading evangelical archaeology program is closing, partly in response to COVID-19. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) will shut down its archaeology program in May, terminating five professors and discontinuing its degree program, which currently has more than 25 graduate students.

The decision came as “part of campus-wide budgetary reductions necessitated by the financial challenges associated with COVID-19,” according to a statement SWBTS sent to Christianity Today.

[...]

That's a pity. The publication prospects for the SWBTS Gezer excavation are also now up in the air.

As the subheading indicates, excavations are halting all over Israel:

The end of SWBTS’s program will not be the only setback for biblical archaeology this year. Across Israel, excavation plans are being canceled or postponed in response to the spread of coronavirus.

The article goes on to discuss the situation of a number of prominent digs in Israel.

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Gnosticism and those other Judean temples?

RELIGION PROF: Elephantine, Leontopolis, and Gnosticism. James McGrath provides some interesting links and comments.

For more on the Aramaic Elephantine papyri, written by Judeans in Egypt in the fifth century BCE, see here and many links. For more on the Temple of Onias at Leontopolis, Egypt, see here and links. For more on the recently discovered temple at Tel Moza (Tel Motza, Tel Moẓa, Tel Moẓah), see here and for the Canaanite temple at Lachish, see here. And for more on the question of ancient Jewish priestesses, see here.

I look forward to hearing more from Professor McGrath about his ideas connecting the Judean temples above with the origins of Gnosticism.

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MOTB seeks to repair its reputation

TRANSPARENCY: Bible Museum, Admitting Mistakes, Tries to Convert Its Critics. In acknowledging that many of its artifacts had tainted histories and that others were fake, the institution hopes candor will build trust (Tom Mashberg, NYT).

“The museum did come clean here,” said Christopher A. Rollston, an associate professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at George Washington University who reviewed the findings about the scrolls. “But the museum will need to continue to engage in this sort of openness if they are to demonstrate that they are fair brokers of the public trust.”

That about sums it up.

By the way, there is some confusion in the article about the cuneiform Gilgamesh fragment. It reports that it is a fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh written in Sumerian.

The Gilgamesh Epic is in Akkadian (a Semitic language) not Sumerian. (Both languages were written cuneiform script on clay tablets.) Some Gilgamesh legends were written in Sumerian, but the Epic was not.

This is a fragment of the Gilgamesh Epic and it is written in Middle Babylonian (Akkadian). Details are here. The statement in the Times is a rather careless error.

According to the Times, this is one of the artifacts being returned because its provenance is "tainted." But this 2017 Science Magazine article reports the claim by a Museum representative that it was obtained from a private collector and that it had "clear provenance." I don't know what happened in the interim.

Background on the Museum of the Bible and the Green Collection is here and many links.

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Conference on Faith, Heresy, Magic

THE NSEA BLOG: CONFERENCE: FAITH – HERESY – MAGIC. This conference is scheduled to take place at Christian-Albrechts-Universität of Kiel in Germany in September. (Or October? Both are mentioned). In any case, hopefully things will settle down enough by then that it can proceed.

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The Assyrian New Year has been canceled in Syria.

CHALDO-ASSYRIAN WATCH: Assyrian new year canceled in Syria amid fear of coronavirus outbreak (Rana al-Ahmde, Al-Monitor). HT AINA.

The Akito (or Kha b-Nisan) normally occurs on 1 April and the celebrations last for some days. I noted it once some years ago here.

I only just found out that this holiday is a modern revival of the ancient Mesopotamian spring New Year, the Akitu Festival, on which more here and links.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch. For more holy days affected by the pandemic (pretty much all of them in April), see here.

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McGrath minute on Mandaeism and more!

RELIGION PROF.: Guest Lecture and Academic Minute on Mandaeism (James McGrath). Actually, Professor McGrath gives us more than an hour on the Mandeans in this blog post.

Cross-file under Mandean Watch (Mandaean Watch).

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The world's holy days in April are upended.

ADAPTATIONS: Coronavirus Is Upending Many Of The World's Biggest Religious Holidays. Nearly every major religion has an important holiday in April — which means it will be a month of surreal new changes for American believers (Carol Kuruvilla, HuffPost).

As Americans enter another month of fighting COVID-19, the country’s major religious groups are heading into one of the holiest seasons on their calendars. Nearly ever major American religious group has a holiday in April. Christians, Jews and Muslims, will observe Easter, Passover and Ramadan. Hindus honor the birth of the Lord Rama on Rama Navami this month. Buddhists who belong to the Jodo Shinshu tradition are preparing for Hanamatsuri, which celebrates the birth of the Buddha. Sikhs will commemorate Vaisakhi in recognition of the moment Sikhism was born as a collective faith. And at the end of April, Bahá’ís will celebrate Ridvan, to honor when their faith’s founder declared himself to be a manifestation of God.

In normal circumstances, these holidays would be occasions for large gatherings ― parades, concerts, packed houses of worship, living rooms full of visiting extended family and friends. But this year, the parades are canceled, pews will lie empty, and many people of faith are counting on watching livestreamed services while staying at home.

The article is about the major religions in American, but the points apply internationally. I was surprised to see how many of the world's religions have a significant celebration in April.

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"Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues"

PASSOVER IS COMING: Exodus in the Bible and the Egyptian Plagues. Can we make sense of the Biblical plagues? (Bible History Daily). Includes the complete 1990 BAR article "Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues" by Ziony Zevit.

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Biblical epic films for the holidays

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 biblical epics to stream for Easter and Passover (Dann Gire, Daily Herald).

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